4th Cycle of NCD Lab for Innovative Solutions

Deadline: 30-Jun-24

For its 4th cycle, the NCD Lab is looking for innovative solutions that transform how NCD and mental health services are delivered by leveraging the primary health care approach.

The Knowledge Action Portal on NCDs (KAP) is an online knowledge repository and community platform focused on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

Responding to the global NCD epidemic calls for novel, evidence-informed and equitable interventions that combine new technologies with outside-the-box ideas, multidisciplinary thinking, and cross-sectoral action. The WHO NCD Lab supports promising grassroots innovations to achieve scale by building knowledge and forging strategic partnerships.

NCD Lab Thematic Areas

• Women and Girls
  • Improving women and girls’ access, participation, and leadership in primary healthcare and NCD prevention and control
  • Promote gender equity and drive progress among women and girls
    • Globally, two out of three women die from an NCD, accounting for 19 million deaths every year. Gender norms and resulting inequalities make women and girls particularly vulnerable to NCDs, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Stigma, low prioritisation of women’s health within families, limited access to financial resources to cover the healthcare costs, competing caring responsibilities, and restrictions to move around freely are but some of the multiple reasons why women and girls face disadvantages in accessing NCD prevention, timely screening, diagnosis and person-centred care across the life course.
    • Women also face the “triple challenge” of reproductive and maternal health conditions, communicable diseases, and NCDs. For example, NCDs such as hypertension and hyperglycaemia can lead to serious complications during pregnancy, threatening the health and lives of mothers and their babies. Similarly, women living with HIV and AIDS are also at increased risk for developing NCDs due to the effects of these illnesses and/or the medications to treat them. Not least, high rates of NCDs also contribute to poverty, which particularly affects women in indigenous communities, refugees and migrants, and among older women.
  • NCD Lab Cycle 4: Innovating PHC for women & girls
    • For its fourth cycle, the NCD Lab welcomes submissions of innovative solutions that transform how NCDs and mental health services are delivered for women and girls by leveraging the primary health care approach. Pregnancy and the postnatal period, for example, offer critical entry points for women to access otherwise unobtainable NCD services. Health initiatives responding to infectious diseases, including COVID-19, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, provide similar opportunities to screen for NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, which is the highest cause of death for women globally.
  • Possible submission types
    • Integrating health services
      • Simple and innovative screening tools for NCDs (e.g. blood sugar levels, blood pressure, waist-to-hip ratio) during pregnancy or postnatal care
      • Incentivizing mothers with screening and/or treatment for NCDs and mental health when they visit primary care settings for their children’s needs (e.g. immunization)
      • Health workforce task shifting (e.g. training community health workers to deliver NCD services to women and girls during pregnancy or postnatal periods)
      • Strengthening integrated primary care for women and girls living with multiple NCDs or living with an NCD and a chronic communicable disease such as HIV and AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis
      • Mobile clinics, digital health or telemedicine, to facilitate remote consultations and follow-up for women and girls
      • Artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies for improving NCD screening, diagnosis, monitoring and/or management for women and girls
      • Collaborative care models that integrate medical, nursing, and allied health professionals to provide holistic and comprehensive NCD and mental health care
      • Mental health services for girls and women in primary health care settings
    • Empowering people and communities
      • Engagement of women and girls with lived experience in clinical decision-making, self-care and management of their own health and wellbeing
      • Culturally-sensitive interventions (e.g. collaborations with local communities to design and tailor interventions to specific cultural contexts)
      • Leadership and empowerment of women in their communities through enhanced health literacy
      • Peer-led support groups and education programs focused on NCD prevention and management for women and girls
    • Strengthening multisectoral policy and action for integrated PHC
      • E.g. healthy nutrition/obesity/substance use interventions in PHC
• Meaningful Engagement of People Living with NCDs and Mental Health Conditions
  • Create and sustain meaningful engagement of people living with NCDs and mental health conditions to build community resilience and participative decision-making.
  • Invaluable insights and active participation of individuals with lived experience
    • People living with NCDs have a right to participate in decisions concerning their own health and well-being. Lived experience is a form of expertise, and crucial to understanding barriers, identifying solutions, and planning policies, programmes and services on NCDs. Programmes that are co-produced with people with lived experience are more likely to be effective and sustainable. Meaningfully engaging people with lived experience in decision-making from design and planning stages through to implementation and evaluation results in greater ownership and responsiveness.
  • NCD Lab Cycle 4: Innovating PHC for Meaningful Engagement of People Living with NCDs and Mental Health Conditions
    • For its fourth cycle, the NCD Lab welcomes submissions of innovative approaches to meaningfully engage people living with NCDs and mental health conditions by leveraging the primary health care approach. Submissions in this thematic area should demonstrate how individuals with lived experience are involved in the co-creation of projects, including at the level of co-design, co-production and/or co-monitoring. For example, engagement of people with lived experience can inform and sensitize primary care professionals, administrators and decision-makers as part of health workforce development. Community-led monitoring of primary care services and community-based programmes that engage people with lived experience can improve PHC coverage of vulnerable populations.
  • Possible submission types
    • Integrating health services
      • People-centred NCD and mental health services that put people and communities, rather than diseases, at the heart of primary care services
      • Mobile clinics, digital health or telemedicine, to facilitate remote consultations and follow-up
      • Artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies for improving NCD screening, diagnosis, monitoring and/or management
      • Collaborative care models that integrate medical, nursing, and allied health professionals to provide holistic and comprehensive NCD and mental health care
      • Strengthening integrated primary care for people living with multiple NCDs or living with an NCD and a chronic communicable disease such as HIV and AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis
    • Empowering people and communities
      • Engagement of people with lived experience in clinical decision-making, self-care and management of their own health and wellbeing
      • Recruitment of individuals with lived experience in professional and paid positions in the primary health care workforce
      • Leadership and empowerment of people with lived experience through enhanced health literacy
      • Strengthening community and home-based care through capacity-building of caregivers and family
      • Strengthening counselling through peer educators as a fundamental pillar of primary health care for all NCDs and mental health conditions
      • Culturally-sensitive interventions (e.g. collaborations with local communities to design and tailor interventions to specific cultural contexts)
    • Strengthening multisectoral policy and action for integrated PHC
      • E.g. healthy nutrition/obesity/substance use interventions in PHC
• NCDs and the Next Generation
  • Engage children and young people in countering commercial determinants and drivers of poor health.
  • Young people as agents of change for a healthier future
    • NCDs have a significant impact on children and adolescents. Several key drivers of NCDs, including physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, exposure to alcohol and tobacco, and unhealthy or unsafe environments, start during childhood and adolescence. NCDs, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and asthma all affect children and/or start in childhood. Depression, anxiety and behavioural disorders are also among the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents. Finally, children and young people are often targeted by industries advertising processed and fast food, tobacco products or alcohol.
    • Integrated NCD services and prevention strategies tailored to young people should therefore be prioritized urgently. The consequences of failing to address NCDs among young people extend to adulthood, threaten to impair both physical and mental health, and limit opportunities to lead fulfilling lives as adults.
  • NCD Lab Cycle 4: Innovating PHC for the Next Generation
    • For its fourth cycle, the NCD Lab welcomes submissions of innovative solutions that transform how NCD and mental health services for children and adolescents are delivered by leveraging the primary health care approach. For example, integrating NCD prevention and early intervention, such as tobacco cessation and mental health counselling, with youth health services or school-based health education and screening programmes have the potential to curb the rising NCD epidemic and ensure young people can access more comprehensive services for healthy growth and development.
  • Possible submission types
    • Integrating health services
      • NCD prevention and early intervention programmes for young people in primary health care centres
      • Youth-friendly health centres/services
      • Strengthening integrated primary care for young people living with multiple NCDs or living with an NCD and a chronic communicable disease such as HIV and AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis
      • Mobile clinics, digital health or telemedicine, to facilitate remote consultations and follow-up for children and adolescents
      • Artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies for improving NCD screening, diagnosis, monitoring and/or management for young people
      • Collaborative care models that integrate medical, nursing, and allied health professionals to provide holistic and comprehensive NCD and mental health care
    • Empowering people and communities
      • Community awareness and prevention campaigns for young people
      • Engagement of children and adolescents with lived experience in clinical decision-making, self-care and management of their own health and wellbeing
      • Leadership and empowerment of young people in their communities through enhanced health literacy
      • Innovations in medical education, including pre-service training
      • Culturally-sensitive interventions (e.g. collaborations with local communities to design and tailor interventions to specific cultural contexts)
    • Strengthening multisectoral policy and action for integrated PHC
      • E.g. healthy nutrition/obesity/substance use interventions in PHC
      • Multi-sectoral activities jointly planned and executed by sub-national/local/district authorities from health, education, sports, parks & horticulture, etc.

Eligibility Criteria

• Non-govenmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, academic institutions and private sector entities (in accordance with the WHO Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors) are eligible to share their projects with the NCD Lab.
• Inclusion Criteria
  • The project is aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 – By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being
  • The project is aligned with the 5X5 NCD framework for diseases and risk factors (cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, cancer, diabetes, mental health conditions including neurological and substance abuse disorders, unhealthy diet, tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, physical inactivity, and air pollution)
  • The project is beyond the ideation phase, with preference to projects which are fully developed and implemented, or at an advanced stage of development.
  • The project includes a needs assessment that supports the project implementation
  • The project incorporates meaningful engagement of the population which it aims to support during the ideation or development phase.

Ineligible

• Funded by any of the following industries: pharmacological, food and beverage, sports, gaming, alcohol, or gambling, and sports betting
• During the past four years, the entity was linked to the tobacco and/or arms industry, or any subsidiary of a tobacco/arms company or a commercial entity involved with the manufacture, sale, or distribution of tobacco/arms or tobacco related products
• The submission is or will be carried outside the 194 UN Member States

For more information, visit WHO.